This is Prompt No. 82-How?

Jason Black watched Mitchie step out of the commander's tent and look around, completely confused. He shrank back into the shadows when she turned her head his way. She would find someone else to take her to their tent. For now, he had to find someone. He slipped out through the other end of the tent and began to stroll down the opposite side of the camp that Mitchie had come from. He raised a hand of greeting to one of the guards on patrol. "Hey there, Jim. How goes?"

The guard shrugged and looked bored. "There's nothing going on," he said honestly. He grinned and leveled his gun at Jason. "You're not thinking about deserting, are you? That would be some action."

Jason grinned at the young man and shook his head. "Nope. I'm just in need of a walk."

The guard nodded. "Go ahead. You sure do take a lot of walks."

Jason laughed. "I like to keep in shape, Jim." He waved as he passed by, taking the road down from the camp and disappearing into the woods. He forced himself to look around at the scenery he had seen hundreds of times, and stoutly refused to let himself look back, since he knew that Jim would still be watching him.

He wove his way through the trees and once he was out of sight, he began to run. His feet pounded the ground, and he silently cursed the worn out boots he had been forced to wear. He jumped over a log and kept running, heading away from the camp, and the wars that were taking place to the east. It took an hour of hard running, with only short pauses in between, to reach his destination, a worn, dilapidated house that looked as though it hadn't been lived in for centuries. His boots sounded ominously loud as he stepped up onto the porch, smiling as it gave a loud groan.

He didn't bother to knock, but instead pushed open the door and stepped inside. The door groaned on its hinges and closed with a loud bang, causing Jason to jump slightly. "I'll never get used to that," he muttered.

He crossed over to the cupboard that occupied the far wall from floor to ceiling and opened the cupboard door. He slid inside, squeezing in between the widely spaced cupboard shelves, and tapped out a rapid, complicated pattern with his knuckles. When he had finished, the cupboard shelves began to shake, and Jason closed the cupboard door before he found himself descending down at a rapid pace. When the cupboard stopped moving, a small door behind him opened and he rolled out onto cushioned surface. He opened his eyes and found light shining into them.

"Hey there, Jason," someone said.

Jason rolled over onto his side and found a young woman standing there, smiling down at him. He smiled back. "Hey, Caitlyn. Is the general in?"

Caitlyn nodded. "He and everyone else are in the meeting room. They sent me out here to collect you."

Jason stood and brushed off his clothes. "Makes me sound like I'm loose change or something," he muttered good-naturedly.

Caitlyn grinned. "Loose, yes, but I'm not so sure about the change part."

Jason playfully elbowed her as she led the way through the establishment to the meeting room. Caitlyn pushed open the door and announced, "He's finally here."

Jason rolled his eyes. "It takes a while to get here on foot," he informed her. "Can we make this rather short? I have to get back soon." He nodded to the general and then turned to the two men sitting next to him, making up the "group." "How are you, Shane?" he asked the first.

Shane Grey nodded and smiled at his friend. "I'm fine," he said evasively.

Jason frowned. "Are you sure?" he asked, "'cause you've been a bit out of sorts since you came back from France."

The other young man snorted and said, "He's lovesick, that's all."

"Nate!" Shane hissed, but the warning was too late.

Caitlyn's ears perked up and she said, "You never told me about a girl!" She smacked Shane's arm. "You always tell me everything!" she complained.

The general sat forward in his chair and asked, "Who is this girl, Shane?"

Shane glared at Nate, the gaze promising that he would kill his brother under the cover of darkness later. "She's someone I met on our mission to France. I rescued her from a rather…sticky situation, and we got to talking." He shrugged. "She seemed very different, and I guess I fell in love." He sat back in his chair with a loving smile on his face. "She had the most peculiar name. Mitchie Torres." He looked up at Caitlyn and said, "She had a twin brother, Mitchell that she loved to death." He looked up at Jason and was surprised to see that his friend's face had gone white, and he had become very stiff. "What is it?" Shane asked, concerned.

Jason slowly asked, "Did she have black hair and chocolaty brown eyes and this huge smile?"

Shane looked startled. "Yes," he said slowly. "How would you know that?"

Jason answered, "Because I met her today."

Shane was up out of his chair before anyone else could even react. "What?!" he shouted. "How? You were at the camp the whole day, weren't you?"

Jason took a deep breath and nodded, prepared to give the whole story. "She came into camp and I could almost immediately tell that she was a girl, but she was dressed as a boy, and she introduced herself as Mitchell Torres. She had no idea where she was going, so I took her to the commander's tent." He shook his head. "I had no idea that you would actually know her!"

"What do you mean, dressed as a boy?" Shane asked, his face deathly pale.

"I mean that she looked like a boy," Jason reiterated, "short hair and all. She was actually rather convincing, but boys don't pick their way through camp like she did. Why do you think she lied about who she was?"

Shane put his head in his hands. "She's taking his place," he muttered. "She's going to fight instead of her brother."

"Is she crazy?!" Nate cried, having seen Mitchie in France for a fleeting moment. "There's no way she could stand that!"

The general, who had been silent through these developments, now spoke. "Unless she's planning something," he mused.

Caitlyn turned to him and asked, "Like what?"

The general was silent for a moment. "Desertion is out of the way, so she must be planning something else. Perhaps getting, or pretending to be, sick?"

Jason thought for a moment. "That could work, I suppose. The army doesn't need sick men-I mean women- on their hands, so they'd probably send her back home after a while."

Shane began pacing up and down. "We have to get her out of there," he said desperately. "She can't be left there."

"Agreed," the general said. "And you're sure that she supports our cause?"

Shane nodded. "Wholeheartedly. Her brother must be the reason that she's there in the first place." He tapped his chin with his index finger. "She might even be an asset to this organization."

Caitlyn's eyes widened. "Another girl?" Her cheeks grew into a smile and she asked, "How soon can we get her?"

The general smiled at her tolerantly. "Caitlyn," he cautioned, "she is not a puppy or something that you can just pick up on whim. She's a person, and people take time to steal away. No, we must get her out of the encampment without having her hunted down for desertion."

"But how?" Shane asked, his mind working in overdrive to try and think of a solution.

"I can only see one way of going about this that will actually work," the general said, but his voice sounded hesitant, strained, like it was an option he didn't like. "Although ingenious, her plan of sickness will never work."

Shane wheeled around. "What?" he asked eagerly, his heart racing. He never thought that he would see Mitchie Torres again, but now that such a meeting was a possibility, he was going to cling to any hope given to him.

The general sat back in his chair, getting ready for the argument he knew would take place upon voicing his suggestion. "You'll have to shoot her."

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Casi, one of my close friends. Thanks for reading everything, here's your shoutout! And to Kacee, who loves all the mysterious secret panels and stuff like that. This is for you, Kace!